Chapter 49 #2
“They’re just doing their job. She needs to calm down, and they’re helping her. You can go back in, once they have sedated her.”
“Fuck,” I gritted out, as her screams reached my ears from the other side of the door.
I needed to be in there. I needed to reassure her that she was safe. Her eyes were swollen shut still, she couldn’t see which I knew was only amplifying the fact that she was scared and felt unsafe.
My arm went flying for the wall, but a hand caught my wrist just before it made contact.
My head jerked to the side as I eyed Crow’s face.
“Sorry,” he said, slowly releasing my wrist, making sure I was going to drop it. “Didn’t want you to break your hand. You wanna punch something,” he lazily gestured to his face, “have at it. Haven’t had a good fist to the face in a while.”
I blinked, head turning to look through the window when the screaming abruptly stopped. I could see that Shiloh was restrained by her wrists and ankles to the bed and I breathed through the anger.
“It’s for her own safety,” the nurse commented.
I shook my head and dropped down into the chair I’d moved outside for Crow. He’d been rotating shifts with Scrappy but I hadn’t seen either of them sit down once.
I slammed my head against the wall and let out a groan.
My phone began ringing in my pocket and I quickly fished it out.
“Fuck,” I muttered before answering. “Hello?”
“Rez, what’s going on? Did your grandmother pass?”
I sighed, giving myself a moment to gather my thoughts. “No. She’s on the mend. It’s my fiancée.”
“What happened?” Onassi asked with concern.
“She came with me to visit my family, here in Pennsylvania. And she was in a car accident,” Onassi muttered a curse, “and has been in the ICU for the past three days.”
“Oh my God, Rez. Is she going to be okay?”
I swallowed, “Y-yeah. Um, she’s stable. Her doctor said she’ll likely be discharged in five to seven days depending on how smoothly her recovery continues.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry, man. What do you need? You need me to approve more leave?”
I sighed with relief that I wasn’t going to have to beg for it. “Yes. Please. I’ll take unpaid if I have to. I just, I can’t leave her here alone. I’m her only family.”
“Of course. I understand. Um,” she clicked her tongue, “you’re still in Harrisburg with your parents?”
“Yeah. Still here.”
“Okay, um, you’ll have to put in the leave request on your end. And I’ll approve it. Please reach out if anything changes, alright? You need anyone to check on your place in town?”
“Um, thanks. I’ll, um, I’ll text Ford. Have him go by and make sure everything is fine.”
“Okay. Listen, you reach out if you need anything.”
“Will do, thank you, ma’am.”
I hung up the call and released another big sigh. It’d been weighing on me since I found Shiloh that I was due back to work on Monday and I couldn’t fathom leaving her. I was barely functioning sitting right outside her hospital room.
“What happ—sorry, I shouldn’t be asking…” Crow, turned his attention to the end of the hallway.
“Nothing,” I responded on habit. I sighed, slamming my head against the wall. “Well, it’s not nothing. She’s…she doesn’t believe that she’s safe. She thinks that they’re going to find her, find me, the rest of our family. She doesn’t believe that they’re dead.”
Crow took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “I don’t blame her. I’d be freaking the hell out too. Does she want to see the footage?”
I grimaced. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t need to ever show her that. Sounds like a shit ton of extra trauma she definitely doesn’t need to experience.”
“Maybe. But, if that’s what it’s gonna take for her to feel safe, then…maybe it’s what she needs.”
I sighed forcefully, growling in my chest.
“I hate this. I hate all of this. She doesn’t deserve this. And they’re in there, fucking…” I trailed off, hands curling into fists again. “Fucking tying her up like she wasn’t just fucking chained to the floor for God-knows how long.”
Crow, reached out and squeezed my shoulder. Her door suddenly opened and I jolted up from the chair, nearly knocking into Crow.
“Can I go in?” I asked the nurses filing out of the room.
One of them nodded, “Yes. Let us know when she’s awake.”
I looked past him to find that she was still restrained and clenched my fists to prevent myself from putting my hands on the man.
“Why is she still tied to the bed?”
“It’s for her safety, sir. I know it looks bad, but this is to protect her from hurting herself or a member of staff.”
“She’s just going to freak out all over again if she wakes up and realizes she can’t move her body.”
The nurse eyed his colleague with a ‘help me out here’ look so I eyed the woman beside him.
“She’s asleep. Yes? So, she doesn’t need to be restrained. She can’t hurt herself or anyone else if she’s asleep.”
I didn’t care that I was coming off as a dick. It wasn’t fair to Shiloh and they were only making their jobs harder by causing another panic attack when she woke up.
“I’m telling you. She will not comply or be calm in any way if she wakes up restrained.”
The woman sighed before nodding. “Okay. I’ll remove them. But if she has another episode she will be restrained again.”
Fuck that.
“Sure.”
I followed her into the room, helping to remove the ones on her wrists. They were red from straining against the ties, and I gently kissed both of them. I glared at the back of the nurse’s head as she exited the room before settling into the chair beside her bed once more.
I leaned forward to wipe the tears from her cheeks that hadn’t dried. I stroked her cheek as I studied the even breaths moving her chest up and down like I’d been doing for the last three days, ready for her to wake again.
I prayed that this time she’d stay calm enough to give me the chance to prove to her that she was safe.